


Day-to-Day

by leah k (blinkiesays)



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-01
Updated: 2007-09-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 02:39:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blinkiesays/pseuds/leah%20k
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter Petrelli has been waiting for his shot at the major leagues since he first got called up to play with the Chicago Cubs in 2005. Now, a year and a half later, he's finally got the chance to prove himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day-to-Day

**Author's Note:**

> September 2007
> 
> Written for the [heroes_bigboom](http://heroes-bigboom.livejournal.com/) challenge.

Ted says, "you're never gonna fuckin' believe this."

Nobody looks up because there are a lot of things Ted doesn't believe, but that doesn't make them news.

Ted says, "you're _never_ gonna fucking _believe_ this!" a little louder and hits the sports page of the Chicago Tribune harder than necessary against the side of the bar.

Peter ignores him, signals to Rich for another beer.

Ted starts to say, "you're _never_ gonna," again, and Parkman finally bites and says, "what, Ted, what is it?"

Ted holds up the sports section, jabbing his finger at the headline, and says, " _Claude fucking Raines_ is coming to spring training."

For once, Ted's right. Nobody in their right mind would believe something like that.

\---

When Peter was in high school, struggling to put on enough weight to make the team, Claude Raines was already a legend.

Claude Raines, the only professional baseball player ever to be born in the UK, was 13 years old when he moved from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and cricket to Tampa Bay and baseball, but he picked up the intricacies of the game pretty damn quickly. He started playing for the Expos in '89, the youngest pitcher to ever throw a complete game, and by '94, when Peter was an awkward Freshman playing junior varsity ball in the Bronx, Raines had already won the Cy Young Award _twice_.

Peter has an old black-and-white picture of Raines that he'd cut out of the newspaper after Raines had won the first game of the '92 World Series with the Braves. He dragged that photo around with him for years, moving it from his house to his college dorm room to every one of the crappy apartments he'd lived in during stints with different double and triple A teams. He _still_ has it on the back of his bedroom door in Des Moines: Raines, his face hidden behind his glove, only his eyes visible, glaring out at him in black and white.

Claude Raines had been one of the greatest pitchers to ever play professional ball, up there with Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens and Sandy Koufax. In 1999 it would have been a sucker bet to say he wouldn't reach 300 wins. He'd still been healthy well into his thirties and had the kind of mechanics where it seemed like he was going to just go on pitching forever, but in 2000, he never showed up to spring training with the Giants, and for the seven years after that it was like he had completely disappeared.

\---

The day after the Raines rumor hits the Tribune and the internet and ESPN, Peter gets a phone call from the Cub's front office, who regret to inform him that he's been moved from the 40-man roster to the non-roster invitees because of an unanticipated signing in the off-season. It's the closest he's going to get to confirmation about the Raines thing until he actually shows up to spring training on the 20th. Still, it's always comforting to know the reporters at the Trib haven't gone completely out of their minds.

Peter mumbles, "thanks," into the phone and Gina at the general manager's office says, "honey, I'm so sorry, I know how much you wanted this," and Peter says, "yeah, I, um, I gotta." Gina sighs, but doesn't yell at him when he fumbles the phone shut without really saying goodbye.

Peter puts down the phone. He doesn't yell, or break things, or call Nathan or his mother like he wants to. Instead, he starts methodically packing up his things, his clothes and his gloves and his toothbrush, getting ready to move from his crappy apartment in Des Moines, Iowa, to a crappy hotel room in Mesa, Arizona, where he knows he's just lucky to get an invitation at all.

\---

There isn't all that much interaction in the first week between the starting pitchers and the infielders and Peter doesn't actually see him, _Claude fucking Raines!_ , until after the fifth day of workouts.

Parkman's in the middle of fighting with his wife again and DL's rattling around by himself until Nikki and Micah come down the next week, so the three of them go to a bar after training instead of going home to angry glares or empty rooms. It's a Friday night, the bar's packed wall to wall with people, and Peter can pick out some of the other guys from the team crowded in at booths and tables with wives and girlfriends and some fans, faces glowing with nervous admiration.

Almost invisible amid the cloud of regulars, Raines is sitting at the end of the bar, hunched over himself, looking wary and staring into the depths of his beer. Peter has to worm his way past him to get the bartender's attention, and feels awkward and embarrassed and obvious the whole time, left arm accidentally brushing up against Raines' side while he fumbles out an order.

Raines takes a second to look up from his beer, locks his eyes straight on Peter and says, "Peter Petrelli." At first, Peter doesn't quite hear him say it, or it doesn't quite register that he's said something, because it's easily the least likely think anyone has ever said in Peter's _whole life_. Nothing could be less expected than _Claude Raines_ saying his name, except for the _next_ thing he says, which is, "brother of Nathan Petrelli, son of Dallas Petrelli."

Peter opens his mouth and closes it a few times, no sound coming out.

Raines gives him an assessing look and adds, "I played with your father, he was a good man. Shame about what happened."

Peter starts to say, "how did you," but the bartender's shoving three glasses at him and asking if he wants to start a tab, and by the time he's sorted everything else out, Raines is back to staring into his beer, ignoring Peter like he never said anything to begin with.

\---

The second game of the pre-season, after a stupid 9-2 loss to San Francisco with Marquis on the mound, "Sweet Lou" Piniella decides to stop dicking around and start Raines.

Raines takes the mound for the top of the first, a hush falls over the crowd, and for a minute it's like everybody's a little bit afraid to breathe. After he throws the first pitch, a curveball that just catches the outside corner for a called strike, the crowd roars back, louder than Peter's ever heard it, deafening after the eerie quiet.

Raines fans the lead-off man, and the guy after that, and after the third guy fouls back his fourth pitch, Ted elbows Parkman in the ribs and says, "what was it like, catching him?"

Parkman says, "how the hell should I know? He only ever threw to Ando." 

DL looks up, surprised, from where he's fucking around cleaning off his cleats, and Ted says, completely nonplussed, "what?"

Parkman snorts and says, "he _speaks Japanese_ ," and everybody looks back at the field, slightly more impressed than they were to start with. It's remarkable, because just speaking for himself, Peter was pretty fucking impressed to start with.

Piniella pulls him after two scoreless innings, and they eventually lose 9-6, but nobody cares, because it's really happening, Claude fucking Raines is back.

\---

His mother calls after the second road game. She asks Peter how he's doing and pretends to listen for about six minutes before she starts making noises about how the Yankees have gone undefeated in their first five games, isn't that great? The Cubs have gone four losses, a one-run win that could have easily gone the other way, and a _tie_.

Peter says, "yeah, really great, Ma," and he can hear her snort of disapproval even through the tinny Arizona reception.

She says, "you shouldn't hold your brother's success against him."

Peter groans and closes his eyes, dropping his head down against the surface of the cheap press-board desk in his hotel room. He says, "it's not about that, Ma," but she doesn't listen and railroads him over with stories about how hard Nathan works to support a family, how proud their father would have been, but Peter just tunes it out. Eventually, he mumbles, "I'm sorry I wanted to go to college," and, "I didn't want to play for the fucking Devil Rays, Ma, nobody in their right mind wants to play for the fucking Devil Rays."

His mother clicks her tongue over him at the swearing and says, "I just worry about you, honey."

He thinks of his brother, his giant apartment in Manhattan, his gorgeous wife and two kids, his name in bold print in the New York Times sports section almost every day. He says, "hey, don't worry about me, the crime rate's really low in Des Moines."

She laughs, finally, and lets Peter change the subject.

\---

Peter sees Raines again in the lobby of the hotel while he's trying to get the keycard to his room to work. Every once in a while, Peter gets nostalgic for actual locks with actual keys. With the keycards, every time he gets the flashing red light it feels like he's being rejected, like he's somehow failed as a person. The green light, the click of the lock when it works, is always more rewarding than it should be.

The woman behind the desk, who's name tag reads Charlie, says something about magnets in a soft Texas-accented voice, but Peter doesn't really hear, he's straining too hard to overhear the conversation between Raines and the hotel manager. He can barely make it out, something about hot water or water pressure or the hotel pool, nothing earth-shattering, but Raines looks like he's making the manager nervous; the man keeps tugging at his collar, smoothing down his ugly tie.

Charlie taps him twice on the back of the hand before he realizes she's trying to hand him back his keycard. She peers over the counter, follows his line of sight towards the other end of the lobby, and says in a low voice, "is that really Claude Raines? Wow." 

Peter says, without thinking about why, "he played with my father in '89."

Charlie looks a little awed, then leans in across the counter and whispers, "I've seen every one of his starts, he's amazing." She pauses, looking thoughtful, and says, "you know, nobody cared about it back then, of course, but if you go back and calculate it, he's got the best WHIP of any righty for the last thirty years."

Peter looks back at her, a little surprised, but she just smiles enigmatically, says, "stay away from those magnets!" and finally works the keycard into Peter's hand.

Peter says, "thanks," and wanders towards the elevators, a little confused. When he looks back up at where Raines was standing, he's already gone.

\---

Bottom of the sixth, 99 degrees, the Padres are up 4-3, and Peter thinks that if he never feels the Arizona heat again, it'll be too soon. Just breathing in the air makes him feel like he's sanding away the inside of his throat with the dust and the dry and the heat. Everybody in the dugout is sweating buckets, crowding up against the fence and leaning their heads up and out to try to catch a breeze, but the wind just isn't moving, and neither is the man on second. Lee hit a three-run shot into the bleachers in the first, but since then no one in a home jersey has set foot on home plate.

One last crack of the bat, Barrett flies out to deep center, and the bench stirs to life, people pushing over each other, grabbing gloves and hats, surging forward towards the field, up and out. The starters grab their gear as they move through the dugout in the opposite direction, streaming past the bench players into the clubhouse, headed home in beautiful cars to rental houses with working air conditioners.

Peter and Parkman and Ted and the rest of the bench swarm onto the field like insects into an open wound. Pulling the starters after the sixth means Piniella's given up and written the day off for a loss, and it's Peter's job to nurse the dead game along until the ninth without embarrassing himself.

The pressure of trying to make the cut, trying impress management is too much, sometimes. On days like today, where Peter's trying to take his mind off the heat and the sun, all he can think about is Piniella sizing him up like a used car. It's the 17th of March already, if he wants to make a good impression, he's running out of time. His hand in his glove feels slick and awkward with sweat, the bat feels twice as heavy in his hands. He ends up grounding out to short with two outs and a runner on third in his only at bat.

They end up losing the game 7-3, but Peter knows in his heart that they were never really in it.

\---

Peter sees Raines for the third time in a bar in the less fashionable part of Mesa, where Peter was hoping not to run into any of the guys from the team.

Peter's seen Raines a bunch of times really, around the dugout and the club house and in team meetings. During games, even, he's stood on first base watching Raines warm up in the bullpen lots of times. Times like that, though, they don't really count. Raines keeps to himself during games, and Peter's been too chickenshit to say anything to him with the guys around.

When Peter sees him for what he thinks of as the third time, it's out in the real world, with Raines by himself and looking something like approachable.

Peter sits down at the only open stool, conveniently the one right next to Raines, and tries to think of something to say that isn't, _come here often?_ or _I have a scrapbook about you in my mother's attic_. He orders a beer, drains half of it in one go, and blurts out, "you knew my father," staring straight ahead and avoiding actually looking at anyone.

Raines doesn't respond for a long time, and Peter thinks, _thank god, he didn't hear me_ , except Raines says, eventually, "yeah."

Peter feels trapped out and panicky and realizes he's sweating through the one good shirt that he brought, but he barrels on and says, "you knew my father, Jesus, _I_ hardly knew my father." When he gets the nerve together to look at Raines, he's staring back at Peter with his head tilted to the side in an assessing manner, and Peter feels his heart rate kick up even faster.

Raines says, "when I was first called up to play in Montreal, I was a skinny kid with a weird accent who didn't speak any French. Dallas Petrelli helped me get my feet."

The man Raines describes doesn't sound like Peter's father to him, not the solitary, quiet man who hardly ever said anything over family dinners. He's seen pictures of the man Raines is talking about in old newspaper clippings and on old baseball cards, but couldn't ever put the two men together in his head.

Peter says, haltingly, "I was wondering if you could, um, tell me about him." He expects Raines to say something dismissive, or make an excuse and leave, but he doesn't. Instead, he starts telling Peter anecdotes about this man, who is supposedly Peter's father, teaching a 19-year-old right handed pitcher how to swear in Quebecois, showing him how to more accurately vary the velocity on his slider. By the time Raines gets to describing the last game of '89, a perfect 81-81 season, it's two in the morning, the bar's closing, and Peter realizes that in all those weeks of surreptitiously watching Raines on the field, this is the first time he's ever seen him smile.

Peter goes quiet for a moment, contemplative, and Raines unexpectedly says, "I'm sorry about what happened." Peter shakes his head, he doesn't like to talk about it, and Raines says, "well, what's gone and what's past help should be past grief."

Peter half-laughs, raises his glass in mock salute. He says, "I never liked that one, never quite got the bit about the bear," and when Raines looks up at him, incredulous, he shrugs. "I was an English Lit major in college." Raines looks at him speculatively until Peter gives in and adds, "for two years."

Raines smirks, says, "I bet you even went to class every once in a while," drains the rest of his beer and stands to leave. Peter awkwardly lurches to his feet, unsteadier than he'd thought he would be. He thinks about following, but finds himself suddenly nervous with his feet too heavy to move, watching Raines disappear through the front door.

The bartender says, "that'll be $24," and, "hey, was that Claude Raines? Do you know him?"

Peter fumbles a ten and a twenty out of his wallet, leaves them on the bar. He says, "yeah," and then, "no, not really."

He walks out into the cold, desert night, spares a brief glance at his crappy old Nissan in the corner of the parking lot, and starts walking along the side of the highway instead. It's about a mile and a half back to the hotel, but Peter figures he needs some time to clear his head, anyway.

\---

Top of the fifth against Seattle, they're already up 10 runs, and Peter is bored out of his mind. Days like this he keeps himself entertained watching everybody in the dugout fidget and twitch and spit.

Spitting is still the one baseball tradition Peter never really got into. It's not that Peter doesn't have stupid nervous habits; he chews on his thumbnail during close games, has since little league, and Nathan's been bugging him for years about how much time he spends messing with his hair. He just doesn't spit.

DL cracks open sunflower seeds with his back teeth, spits the shells at people when he's in a bad mood. Parkman chews gum, but has to spit it out and get a new piece after an inning with a wild pitch or passed ball. He's seen some of the other non-roster guys spitting on their gloves before at-bats, trying to see if it works for them the way it does for Big Papi in Boston. Ted chews tobacco, which is disgusting and a one-way trip to throat cancer, but ever since Ted's wife died of Leukemia last year, Peter's not sure that isn't what he wants.

Raines doesn't have any bad habits, as far as Peter can tell; all her ever does when he's not on the mound is read. He's not even that eccentric, as far as ball-players go: no beautiful actress girlfriend, no self-help books, no run-ins with the law. If it wasn't for his record and his reputation, he wouldn't even be that memorable. The only unusual thing about him, really, is the way he leaves the mound after the third out: hiding behind his glove like he doesn't want to be seen. _L'homme Invisible_ , he'd been called in Quebec. The Invisible Man. 

The Cubs score again, the crowd erupting into cheers and Peter realizes he's pretty much openly staring at Raines, tucked in against the wall in the corner of the dugout reading something in the original French, and he's caught out easily when Raines finally looks up. Peter feels the back of his neck heat up, embarrassed, but Raines just nods his way and goes back to reading.

Ted shifts closer to Peter on the bench, and half-whispers, "so, did he tell you?" Parkman glares, elbows him to shut up.

Peter asks, "did who tell me what?"

"Word is you've been getting pretty friendly with Raines. So, did he tell you what happened with San Francisco?" Ted looks expectant and eager, and even DL looks up from his cleats, interested.

There are dozens of rumors about Raines' disappearance, even more speculation about why San Francisco agreed so easily to let him out of his contract. Most people assume he fought with the management, he fought with the players, he slept with somebody's wife, but now that Peter knows him a little, none of the rumors seem to make any sense. He had a 20-win season with the Giants in '99, never had any visible tension with the players or management, never asked to be traded or complained to the media.

Why he left, and why he's back now, is the biggest mystery in the major leagues, a scandal up there with the Pete Rose's gambling, Barry Bonds' steroid use, and the Black Sox's thrown World Series.

"No," Peter says, "I never even thought about asking."

\---

Peter sees Raines one more time before the end of March at the same bar again, sitting in the back at a table like he's waiting for someone. Peter thinks about going over to him, asking if he could sit down, but there's something about his expression that warns Peter back, and he sits down on a stool at the bar, half-watches the Spurs-Warriors game on the TV mounted over the bar.

Five minutes later, Noah Bennet, the Cubs general manager, walks in the door. Peter nearly falls off his stool in surprise, but Bennet doesn't even look around, just walks straight to the back of the bar and sits down across from Raines, his back to the door. Peter splits his attention between the game and the table in the back, sees Bennet wave off the waitress without ordering a drink, sees the tense expression on Raines' face. The conversation lasts about fifteen minutes and Peter can't make out a word of it, but Raines just looks angrier and angrier as it goes on. When Bennet gets up to leave, Peter pretends to be watching the game again, only to find out it's over, San Antonio's won 126 to 89. 

When Peter looks back again, Raines is still there, staring down into his beer and tapping an agitated rhythm against the table with his right hand. Peter starts to stand, one foot on the floor, the other still hooked around the bottom rung of his stool, when he feels awkward and uncertain, part of him wanting to go talk to Raines again, part of him feeling like he's not allowed, and another part of him realizing Raines probably isn't in the mood.

He's about to sit back down, pretend the moment away, except his awkward, lurching movement has knocked his stool into the one next to him, skidding that one into the bar loud enough to be heard over the horrible honky-tonk piped in the speakers. Raines looks up, and Peter sees him sort of flinch when he recognizes Peter, figures out that he was there the whole time. Peter just freezes, beer in one hand, half-on-half-off the stool, until Raines waves him over. Peter pays up his tab at the bar, and walks to the back, feeling exposed.

Peter stands at the edge of the table, and says, "um."

Raines rolls his eyes, says, "very elegant. Have a seat," and kicks out the chair Bennet was just sitting in.

Peter sits, drinks down half his beer in one swallow, and tries to think of something to say that isn't _what the hell was that?_

Raines breaks the silence, saying, "you seem to be slipping your leash pretty often these days."

Peter says, "what?"

"You're out here on your own, without Hawkins, Parkman, and Sprague, your little gang," Raines says, making an abstract gesture with his hand. "You know, if you stay too attached to that lot, you're never going to make it."

Peter flinches back a little, stung, and says, "having friends makes me a better player."

Claude looks at him skeptically, says, "and what _exactly_ about your history with this organization would back up that statement?" Peter doesn't have an answer to that yet, but _fuck Raines_ , he's only 26, his career isn't over yet.

This is something Nathan's given him crap about, too, believing in people, putting pride into teamwork. It's something Nathan's never really understood, but Nathan's always believed that if he's good enough, he can make up for the faults of everyone around him. Peter's always believed that he was just one guy out of the 25 you need to fill out a roster. "Just because you have no faith in other people," Peter says, eventually, "it doesn't mean that having faith in people is a weakness." 

Claude snorts at that, takes a long pull of his beer. He says, "we'll see about that." Peter doesn't know what to say, can't figure out the right words to make Raines see things the way he does, and they sit in awkward silence for a long time.

After an eternity, Claude says, "I know your little friends want to know why I left the Giants. It's because of people like Bennet, trusting people like Bennet. Remember that." He smiles, completely without humor, baring his teeth.

Peter finishes what's left of his beer and stands on unsteady legs. He says, "I don't know what happened to you, I don't know why you hate people the way you do, but I know that you're wrong," and walks out.

\---

Spring training grinds to a halt with a 2-1 loss to Seattle, the Cubs limping out of March with 17 wins, 13 losses, and a pair of ties. Peter spares a spiteful thought that it's a better record than the Yankees, but it's only a mild comfort when he thinks about spending another season alone in his crappy apartment in Des Moines.

Not for the first time, Peter thinks about getting a girlfriend.

It had always felt like there would be time, in the future, to get to that. Except, after he'd left high school and turned down Tampa Bay's offer in the '99 draft, the last eight years had gone by stupidly fast: three and a half semesters at LSU, barely a year playing A+ in Frederick, the next season with AA Bowie, the next with AAA Ottawa, and then he'd been traded from the Baltimore farm system as a side-along on the Sammy Sosa deal to Chicago and the Iowa Cubs. Never in one place long enough to meet anybody, convince some woman that he was worth anything.

He'd thought, in college, a girl named Simone, but she'd wanted a career, a future that didn't involve packing up and moving every year, scraping together a living, just for the remote possibility of making it to the big show, someday. There aren't that many women that want that kind of life.

Peter knows now, too, that even when you can get a woman to sign on, it takes so much to make it work. DL always said that getting Nikki pregnant was the best, stupidest, and most terrifying thing that had he'd ever done. Parkman comes to games looking like he's gone ten rounds against Mike Tyson on the days after he's had another fight with his wife. Ted still wears his wedding ring every day, gets a weird far-off look in his eyes when he looks into the player's family section of the stands.

Sometimes, Peter thinks he's better off alone, but he never feels that way for very long.

Not for the first time, Peter thinks about getting a cat.

\---

Ten games into the season, Iowa's getting a rocky start: five wins, four losses, and a rain-out. Peter's getting some playing time, starting at every base but first, trying to claw his average back up to the Mendoza line, but DL's been hitting like someone lit his bat on fire. Today was a win, at least, 4-1 against the Round Rock Express, which, as Ted puts it, is a fucking stupid name for a ball-club.

Meanwhile, in Chicago, Raines blows a five-run lead in the fifth. Peter watches the SportsNite wrap-up in the bar with Ted and Parkman and DL, a little bit stunned at Raines getting punched out like that.

Rich turns down the music in the bar and turns up the volume on the TV for the press conference, where Piniella's turned bright red, looking like he's going to start breathing fire. Some reporter asks, timidly, what Piniella thinks isn't working, and he roars back, "what the hell do you think isn't working? _You see the damn game!_ " Ted laughs and pounds his fist against the bar, and Piniella takes a breath, calms himself down a bit, but he's still pretty angry when he continues, "this guy is your ace! You got a 5-0 lead with the eighth and ninth hitters coming up, you feel pretty good about that inning, and all-of-a-sudden it turns into a six-run inning!" Peter would feel bad for Raines, if he wasn't still kind of pissed off at him, if he thought that Raines listened to anything anybody ever said about him.

Piniella takes a longer moment to breathe, to get back his sweet disposition, and says, "I can see. I can start to see some of the ways this team has lost ballgames. I can see it. We've got to correct it, obviously." 

Peter looks at the rest of the guys, and he knows what they're thinking: Parkman's thinking about Michael Barrett's sloppy pitch-calling at catcher, DL's thinking about how ill-suited Alfonso Soriano looks in center field, Ted's thinking about the kind of prospects you could get if you traded a player like Ramirez. Peter himself is thinking about César Izturis' rocky start at short, about the holes in the Cub's lineup that he could fill. They all want the same thing, they're all thinking the same thought: _put me in, let me try, I can do it_.

Rich turns the volume back down on the TV, and they go back to giving Parkman shit about his wife.

\---

After thirteen games and rain-out, Peter's still feeling the pressure, still feeling guilty for grounding out the one and only time he was put in to pinch hit in a tight situation. Still, he's managed to claw his average up to a respectable .290 from the rocky numbers he was putting up at the start of the season.

DL, though, has been starting almost every game in center, he's batting .444, and he's starting to get nods in the _Cubs bits_ section of the Trib. Peter's favorite news clipping is a letter to the editor in the Des Moines local paper, a woman writing about how much she loves DL's attitude in center, how "he seems like he's willing to run through walls to make a catch." When Peter hears that Chicago's sending down Angel Guzman, he's not at all surprised that DL gets the call.

Peter goes with him when he packs up his locker and drives him to the bus station because Nikki has to work. DL's always been kind of a jerk, though, so even when Peter's doing the nice thing, sending him off, he says, "always a bridesmaid, never a bride, huh, Pete?"

Peter laughs, but kind of wants to punch him, and DL says, "fuck, pretend I never said that, alright?" He gives Peter one of those painful, bone-crunching, back-pounding, one-armed hugs before he throws his stuff under the bus and gets on, headed for the friendly confines of Wrigley Field.

\---

Peter starts feeling like less of a fuck-up when he gets three hits in five at bats and sends three guys across home plate during a game against Albuquerque. He starts to feel _even better_ when does the same thing again a week later against Memphis, going 3-for-5, this time with four batted in on a double and a home run. Parkman gets two hits in that same game and they both get stupid drunk afterwards, Peter waking up the next morning on the floor in the hotel room that Parkman and Ted share with little-to-no memory of how he got there.

What he does remember, when he's sneaking out under the sound of Ted's snoring, is him and Parkman propping each other up, walking across the parking lot to the hotel, Parkman's beer-soaked breath in his ear saying something about Janice, something that sounded important at the time. Peter figures if it's really important, he'll bring it up again, later.

\---

A third of the way into May, both the Iowa and Chicago Cubs are treading water, flirting with winning records, and Piniella's talking about roster moves again.

Peter hits three doubles in a single game, goes 4-for-5, and is starting to feel _invincible_ , which is typically a bad sign. Parkman's playing games now with less of his usual enthusiasm and more of a grim determination, looking every day like he's getting less and less sleep. Peter thinks about saying something to him, but even though his soul looks like it's been crushed, Parkman's actually on something of a hot streak and it feels like it'd be bad luck.

Scouts have been coming by the park recently to see the Haitian, one of the few other players left in Iowa that's lived through the era of Dusty Baker and his distrust of rookies. With injuries and one thing or another, The Haitian's been up and down more times than Peter's changed the oil in his car. He's been getting a lot of starts recently, hit a home run in the last game, and he's got a lot of major-league experience, but Peter's still pretty shocked when he gets called up and DL's sent down.

DL shows up that night, after the game, and finds them at the bar. He looks terrible and angry when he sits down at their usual table, and there's an awkward moment of silence that Peter doesn't know how to fill. Finally, Parkman looks down at the table without meeting anybody's eyes and says, "my wife's been cheating on me. For a while now."

There's another painful silence, until DL says, "you win," and they order another round.

\---

When Gina calls, excited, on the 14th, Peter almost feels guilty, except he knows he's earned it. He's hitting .364, he's fielding at the top of his game, he knows he's ready. He almost wants to send Rocky Cherry flowers for his disappointing relief appearances, which meant he got sent down, and opened up a spot on the roster for Peter, but Peter knows he isn't nearly enough of a dick to really do it.

Getting on the plane to New York, he realizes he's never been to Shea before, not even as a fan. Despite playing in Montreal for 20 years, his father was loyal to the Yankees until the bitter end; the family saw a game in the Bronx or they didn't see one at all. As a player, in Peter's one week with Dusty Baker's Cubs in 2005, he'd played in four parks: San Diego, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. He's been to every park in the AAA Pacific Coast League twice, but he's only ever been to a handful in the majors, and he's never set foot in Flushing.

Getting off the plane in LaGuardia, Peter has a sickening realization that he's not going to be able to get through the series without seeing his mother. Thank god the Yankees are playing the Sox in Chicago, or he'd have to actually talk to Nathan, too.

\---

Peter agrees to lunch with his mother before his first game, but doesn't realize until he walks into the restaurant that he's agreed to lunch with his mother _and Claude Raines_. He almost walks back out, but his mother says his name and stands up, and he _has_ to walk over to her or else he's never going to hear the end of it for years.

She kisses him on both cheeks and clasps his hands, tucks a fallen strand of hair behind his ears, and finally says, "you must know Claude?"

Peter nods, says, "we've met," and sits down, feeling awkwardly like he's in a bizarro-world parent teacher conference.

The restaurant is the kind his mother tends to frequent: it's new, tucked in next to central park and the Met, and expensive without being trendy, with fresh-cut flowers on every table and napkins made of more expensive fabric than Peter's shirt. Raines looks surprisingly at home, both in the restaurant and in the suit he's wearing, which surprises Peter, having only ever seen him in baseball uniforms and ratty old street clothes.

His mother immediately launches into a conversation about how she's re-decorating the apartment and the problems she's had with the local plumber, and Peter's amazed, as always, at how she makes these kinds of things sound horrible and stressful. Peter almost feels bad for her, until he remembers that she's busy all day not working and figuring out new ways to spend millions of dollars. It always makes Peter feel more and more proud of his crappy one-bedroom apartment in Des Moines, which he bought without anyone else's help.

Raines is sort of smiling at her in a fond way and Peter realizes, suddenly, that they're old friends, that they must have been in touch since '89, when Raines was playing for the Expos, barely older than Nathan, and Peter's mother used to fuss over the rookies like a mother hen. Peter's confused and disoriented enough that he doesn't say anything for most of the conversation, at least until it switches over to baseball.

His mother starts in about Nathan, how the Yankees are struggling, but Nathan's having a good year. Peter starts to tune her out, except he hears Raines say, "but your Peter here was brilliant in Arizona," and snaps back to attention, surprised. His mother smiles and says what he assumes are nice things about him, but he can't hear them over his own thoughts, that Raines had been _paying attention to him_ the whole time.

Peter falls back into the conversation, which has switched to how he's been playing in Iowa, and he gets himself together enough to tell a few decent anecdotes. Before he knows it, lunch is almost over, and his mother has moved on to scolding Raines about his starts, which have evened out to three wins and three loses. Peter sits back and watches his mother lecture a four-time Cy Young winner, who is, in turn, rolling his eyes and acting like a petulant child.

He's sharing a cab with Raines back to the team hotel, and while Raines flags it down, his mother pulls him back to give him another kiss on the cheek, tell him how proud she is, and say, "look after him, will you?" indicating Raines with a nod of her head. Peter says, "um," and she says, "good boy," before ducking into the cab Raines has hailed, forcing them to flag down a second one.

The cab ride back is oddly comfortable, enough so that Peter says, "you know, you're kind of a jerk," and Raines lets out a sort of strangled bark of laughter. Eventually he says, "yeah," and they let it settle at that, all forgiven on both sides.

During the game that night, the Cubs blow out the Mets 10-1, Raines only gives up six hits, and Peter makes contact in his one pinch-hitting at-bat, starts his major league season batting a thousand.

\---

Peter doesn't really know anyone besides Raines on the team, except the Haitian, but the guy barely talks, ever.

Peter ends up talking during the game to the new Japanese pitcher, Hiro Nakamura, who's gone a disappointing 2-2 start and looks just as nervous in the dugout as Peter. His grasp of English isn't the greatest, but it's much better than the last time Peter saw him in Spring Training, trying to have a conversation with Piniella without a translator. Each time he sees Peter at the start of the next two games, and after Peter comes back to the dugout after his next, unsuccessful, at-bat, he calls out Peter's name in his excited, chirpy voice, _Pe-tah Pah-trell-ee!_ and it makes Peter smile.

\---

Peter sees Raines in the lobby of the team hotel on his way out, but he hardly notices, Gina's apologetic voice still ringing in his ears, telling him how the team needs a right-handed pitcher more than they need a utility infielder right now. He's on an early flight out the next morning, but he doesn't really care right now, just needs to get out of the hotel and out of his head for a while. Raines catches up to him as he hits the sidewalk and is looking around, trying to get his bearings.

Peter says, "why are you following me?" and it comes out bitter and angry, but he doesn't mean it that way, not really.

Raines, though, doesn't even hesitate, he just catches Peter by the elbow and says, "you look like you could use a friend, mate." Peter's too angry to think up an answer to that, and Raines hustles him into a cab, tells the driver an address that Peter doesn't recognize.

Peter spends the drive staring out the window, at the parts of New York that he never knew very well, the parts that he can remember from being a kid that have changed in the last eight years. The cab stops in front of some run-down looking bar and Raines looks at him expectantly until he pays the cab fare. When he gets out of the car, twenty dollars lighter, Raines pushes him through the front door into the smell of dark wood and oil lamps.

The bartender, polishing glasses behind a giant oak bar, looks up when they walk in says, "ta, Claude, table in the back?" in an British accent. Raines says, "thanks, Tom," and strides towards the dimly lit back of the bar, through a door Peter can barely make out. Peter follows blindly, ends up in a high-backed leather chair with a pint of something dark on the table in front of him.

Raines says, like he's finishing up a conversation out loud that he's started in his head, "but that's not it, your problem, they way you hit, you're too crowded up in your head, thinking too much. You're worried about what your mother's going to think, if you're standing how Nathan would stand, how the guys are doing, who's fucking Parkman's wife. You're so distracted that when your perfect pitch comes along you don't see it properly, so you get too far under it or over it or through it and you're out before you know it. You've got to clear your head. No distractions."

Peter thinks they already had this conversation in Arizona, and he start to get angry again. He says, "the people I love are not distractions."

Raines looks at him, incredulous, says, "you're still sunk under your attachments, and they're holding you back. You want to spend another year hitting .300 in Des Moines?"

Peter laughs, but it's an ugly sound, and says, "what do you know? You're a pitcher. If I need to throw a curveball, I'll call you, ok?"

Raines gives him an assessing look and says, "are you going to be in the Hall of Fame?" Peter doesn't answer right away, and Raines says, "well, are you?"

Peter doesn't look up, shakes his head, and hisses out, "no."

Raines says, "because I am. And it's not because I spend my time on the mound thinking about my mum and wondering why my father never loved me. So when I give you some advice, it'd be a good fucking idea to listen, yeah?" Peter deflates at that, really, and nods, takes a long pull of his beer, which is thick and too bitter and a little bit flat, but he drinks it anyway.

Raines nods, like they've come to some kind of decision, and says, "right. Did I tell you about the time with Randy Johnson and the chicken?" Peter shakes his head, and Raines launches into one of the most convoluted stories Peter has ever heard, absurd enough that just puzzling it out makes Peter's head spin, takes him right out of his bad mood.

Every time Peter finishes his glass, Tom appears at his elbow with another one, and Peter floats out of his own head for a while, drifting along on Raines's stories about the '89 Expos, his World Series starts with Atlanta, his games playing with and against some of the greats. Peter laughs at the right parts, says, "you're fucking kidding me!" at the right parts, feels himself get weightless on beer and a kind of muzzy contentment. Not for the first time, really, Peter starts thinking of Raines as handsome, catches himself thinking about Raines' blue eyes in a less than academic way, but he's not too drunk he can't realize that thinking thoughts like that only lead to trouble.

At some point he finds himself falling half-asleep, and all off a sudden he feels himself lifted to his feet, Raines' voice in his ear saying, "I think you've had enough, friend." He falls asleep for real during the cab-ride back and wakes up slightly more sober when they reach the hotel. They separate at the elevator; Raines wants to take the stairs and Peter is too afraid of falling down them to risk it. Peter mumbles, "thank you, um, Claude, for everything," and Raines just looks at him like he's crazy, reaches around the elevator doors and pushes the button for his floor before stepping back with a little wave and a smirk.

\---

Peter is hung-over for his whole flight back, grateful that he isn't starting until the next day. Parkman picks him up at the optimistically named Des Moines International Airport looking happy and refreshed, like he's slept, maybe even with his wife. He doesn't say anything about Peter's miserably short trip to the major leagues, just says, "glad to have you back!" like Peter's been on a three-day vacation.

Peter spends the next week and a half recounting Claude's stories, what he can remember of them, at least, and he keeps telling the story of his one big inning in Shea. It was a pretty impressive pinch hit, double to deep left, advanced to third on a wild pitch, home on a sacrifice fly, but every time he tells it the stakes get higher and the hit gets more complicated and impressive. It's a joke, of course, anybody could watch the tape, everybody's seen his one highlight on Baseball Tonight, but it makes him feel better. At one point Parkman says, "Pete, I don't think there were actually snakes behind home plate," and Peter just cracks up laughing for the first time in a long time.

Eventually, he's not even angry about getting sent down, Marmol's too good a pitcher to be wasted in Iowa, and he knows Gina was right, they need someone decent in the bullpen more than they need a pinch hitter who's 5'9" and underweight, even if he is, technically, batting .500 in the majors.

\---

May rolls over into June, the Iowa Cubs are 30 and 22, the Chicago Cubs are 22 and 29, and Henry Blanco gets put on the disabled list with a bulging disc in his neck. The four of them hear the news watching SportsCenter over the bar.

Peter reads the words _bulging disc_ on the closed captioning and sure enough, DL starts telling the only good anecdote he knows, about one of the best sportscaster fuck-ups of all time. DL says, "only he doesn't say _disc_ , he says _dick_ ," and Ted nearly falls down laughing. "Jesus, the crew is laughing so hard the camera was shaking, and Keith Olbermann says, _'thank goodness we didn't have any videotape of that Hurst injury!_ '"

Peter's heard it a hundred times, but he still laughs a little, and then Parkman's cell phone rings and everybody gets pretty quiet.

Parkman pulls it out of his pocket, looking at it like he's never seen it before, and hustles out the door for better reception and some quiet.

Ted says, "I thought it'd be Soto for sure," and DL says, "shut the hell up, man."

By the time Parkman walks back into the bar with a sort of dumbstruck look on his face, DL and Ted are joking around and shoving each other like nothing's new, but they all stop talking and just watch him cross the room. He shakes his head, and his voice says, "it's not a big deal, they need a back-up for Barrett, day games after night games," but his eyes say _this is big fucking deal!_ and he pays for the next round.

The next day, Carlos Zambrano tries to claw out Michael Barrett's eyes in the dugout, and actually hauls back and punches him in the clubhouse. Barrett leaves the game with a split lip and all of a sudden Parkman's the only catcher the Chicago Cubs have got. Peter and Ted and DL watch the whole thing on Baseball Tonight, and after watching the replay for what feels like the 10th time, Ted whistles between his teeth and says, "sure didn't see that coming."

\---

After the Barrett-Zambrano fight, everything starts to speed up.

Parkman gets a hit in his first start and raises his batting average from .000 to .083, but he leaves five men on base with the other three at bats. He calls Peter after the game, panicked, saying, "I don't know if I can actually do this." Peter says, "it's just for a little while, until Zambrano and Barrett work things out," but Parkman doesn't really believe him, and Peter doesn't really believe himself.

The day after that, Daryle Ward gets put on the disabled list after a collision at first and DL's packing his locker and getting on a bus back to Chicago. Parkman calls again that night after going 0-for-3, and Peter says, "why don't you just complain to DL when you see him?" Parkman makes a kind of incoherent happy noise, and Peter laughs at him for five minutes straight before hanging up.

Peter has five quality starts at second and at short with just Ted for company, and just when Peter's starting to get lonely, he gets another call from Gina. After she's run down where he's supposed to go and when and his flight information, she adds, "I really think this could work out for you, Pete!"

Instead of "good-bye" she says, " _good luck!_ " with all her heart, and not for the first time, Peter thinks about tracking her down in Chicago and asking her to marry him.

Parkman and DL meet him at the airport in Atlanta and they all have an embarrassing group-hug chest-thumping moment in front of baggage claim when they see each other. Hiro shouts his name across the room when he walks into the locker room the next day, and Claude says, "welcome back, friend," when Peter maneuvers past his locker.

Peter goes 1-for-4 in his first start at second base and they lose the game 5-4, but he's stupidly happy anyway.

\---

His first week back in the majors, Peter is hitting above .400 with two home runs. It's strange, and Peter knows he has a really small basis of comparison, but it doesn't feel like the same team it was in May, and the numbers are backing him up: they've gone 9-5 since the fight in the dugout.

Peter mentions it, in one of the rare occasions that Claude actually talks to him during a game, and Claude says, "nothing like a punch-up to make people concentrate." Peter looks at the way everybody's sharper, more focused, and has to agree.

\---

Bottom of the fourth, grinding away at a 0-0 game against the Padres, Lee flinches back hard in the middle of his at-bat, falls backwards, and Peter's on his feet before he really processes what's going on.

Things happen pretty quickly after that: Lee's been hit a pitch, the pitch looked like it was aiming for his head, they're giving him first base, he's walking towards across the infield, the Padres' pitcher is turning towards him, saying something Peter can't make out, and suddenly Lee walks up and punches him. Or at least tries too, but it's the same as makes no difference to the umpires, the fans, the rest of the team, or Chris Young, who's swinging wildly back at Lee. Everybody jumps to their feet, Big Z comes charging out of the clubhouse still buckling his pants, and Peter can see that even the bullpen is emptying out.

Peter tries to scramble up and out of the dugout, but he feels someone's hands holding him back long enough, just a few seconds really, that he doesn't get to the field until it's mostly broken up. He helps Quade pull Big Z out of it, keeps a Padre from ripping Marshall's jersey off, calls someone a son of a bitch, and slinks back into the dugout when the umpires start yelling.

When the dust settles, Lee's gone and Young's gone, along with another Padre and the Cubs' hitting coach, and it takes Peter a minute to remember that it's still a 0-0 game in the bottom of the fourth. He completely zones until somebody reminds him he still has to hit this inning. He ends up grounding out to the pitcher.

Later, half-way through the bottom of the sixth, Mark calls out to Ando, "hey, how do you say 'no hitter' in Japanese?" About ten people yell, "be _quiet!_ " and Parkman trips over Ryan trying to get to him to shut him up. Peter looks up at the scoreboard for the first time, sees the Padre's line: no runs, no hits, no errors, and starts to get nervous. Claude either doesn't notice the other guys in the dugout or doesn't care, looking down at his copy of _Ulysses_ with absolute concentration.

Ando, for his part, completely ignores Mark and, somehow picking up on the thread of Peter's thoughts, says to Peter, "Hiro does the same thing." Peter shoots him a questioning look, and Ando just looks back with that open, honest face of his. He nods towards Hiro and says, "between innings he reads comic books, pretends to be somewhere else. It helps him to focus. To clear his mind of distractions."

Peter says, "I'll never understand pitchers," and shakes his head, but he looks over at Claude again, and thinks that he understands about distractions.

Claude loses the no-hitter in the eighth and the game in the ninth on a solo home run. Peter hates getting shut out, but this one he thinks he can live with. It's not anybody's fault: after the fourth, the fight had just gone out of everyone.

\---

Peter had been honest when he'd said he hadn't even thought about asking Claude about his disappearing act with the Giants. It hadn't seemed important, at the time. It isn't important now, either, not nearly as important as the Cubs' race to .500, as Peter's race to keep his spot on the roster, but as he gets to know Claude better and better, starts to think of Claude as a friend, he starts thinking about it, more and more.

Every once in a while, he'll see Claude talk to Ando or Hiro in Japanese, his voice oddly-accented and slow against Hiro's mile-a-minute chatter, and wonder. He's staring at the two of them talking over something, comparing grips or arm-movements or whatever it is that pitchers talk about, and doesn't notice as Noah Bennet walks up behind him.

He nearly jumps out of his skin when Bennet says, in a low voice, "he played in Japan for a few years."

Peter half-turns, says, incoherently, "um, what?"

Bennet smiles in a really disconcerting way, and says, louder, "our Gina's very fond of you. I should warn you, though, her husband used to play defensive tackle for the Bears."

Peter just sort of stares at him, his mouth open, trying to get his brain to work up to something coherent. He finally chokes out, "I'll keep that in mind."

Bennet nods like they've come to a decision.He looks over to where Hiro's flailing and jumping up-and down excited over whatever Claude is showing him. Bennet says, "about what you saw, in Arizona," and does this thing, where he sort of tilts his head to the side like he's thinking mid-sentence about how much he'd get for you in a trade, "Raines is... an old friend. Who owes me a favor." Bennet pats Peter on the shoulder and Peter feels himself break out into a cold sweat. "Keep that in mind."

Bennet walks briskly up to Hiro and Claude and joins the conversation, in Japanese. Peter watches as Hiro tries to show him the grip on a four-seam fastball, the way Bennet's fingers keep slipping off the ball. Hiro's too excited to notice, but Peter doesn't miss the way Claude's smile goes slightly plastic, the way his stance goes tense and anxious, and Peter thinks: old friend. _Yeah, right_.

\---

Barrett gets traded to the Padres on the 21st of June, just under three weeks after what the sports-bloggers are calling The Slugout in the Dugout.

Parkman's been catching Claude and Zambrano since the fight, but now he's it, the number one catcher, with Ando as back-up. Big Z starts strutting around the clubhouse like he's invincible, completely confident in his value to the organization. Parkman starts walking around chewing on antacids and looking like he's going to be sick.

Peter and DL try to psych him up before starts, Peter says things like, "you've got this," and, "I know you can do it," and DL says things like, "just do that freaky mind-reader thing you do," and "it doesn't matter if you strike out four times in a row, as long as you call the right pitches."

Parkman says, "yeah, thanks guys," in a sort of pissy, sarcastic way, and doesn't look particularly reassured by any of it, but at least he gets behind the plate looking like he's supposed to be there. The team loses the first game post-Barrett, but Parkman gets a hit and an RBI and it's enough to get rid of the shell-shocked look on his face.

Claude grudgingly agrees to come out with Peter and DL and Parkman after the game to celebrate Parkman's continued presence behind home plate, and Peter's surprised when Claude actually seems to have a good time. DL starts calling him "British" instead of "Raines" and half-way through the stupid SportsCenter story again, Claude nearly does a spit-take with his beer, and looks over at Peter, a little apologetic, as if admitting that maybe Peter's friends aren't completely the fuck-ups and losers that Claude made them out to be.

Somewhere into the third round of beer and after the second round of tequila, Parkman's slumped over miserably, forehead pressed against the table, moaning into the woodwork that he's still only hitting .179. Claude laughs, hits him on the back, and says, "in 1989 I had a career batting average of twenty-six. I was so bad, I swear they used to walk three batters in a row to pitch to me."

DL whistles between his teeth, says, "you belong in the American League, British." Parkman's face is still smashed up against the woodwork, but when his shoulders start shaking, Peter can tell he's laughing.

\---

Bottom of the first against the Rockies, already down 1-0, Peter hits a clean single past Kaz Matsui at second, but gets thrown out running between first and second during Lee's at-bat. Lee, Ramirez, and Mark DeRosa single back-to-back-to-back before The Haitian knocks one out of the park and Peter feels like the biggest idiot in the world for getting caught stealing, costing the team a run.

Peter's up again to lead off the third and reaches on an infield single. He gets to second on Lee's single to short, to the third on a fielder's choice, and runs home on Mark's ground-out to the third baseman. It doesn't quite make up for being an idiot in the first, but it's something, the team's up 5-1 heading into the fourth.

Peter leads off the fifth and it's like Jeff Francis is throwing softballs, Peter's seeing the ball better today than any other day in the majors _or_ minors, and he sends the next pitch, a fastball straight down the middle, into deep left, practically strolls into second base. Lee singles, _again_ , because the man is a fucking _machine_ , Ramirez pops out, and Peter scores when Mark grounds into another play where the fielder's choice isn't Peter.

The Rockies score two in the sixth, Marquis starts to look unsteady at the mound, and Piniella pulls him for Wuertz, who just barely gets them out of the inning.

Peter steps up to the plate in the bottom of the sixth, already 3-for-3 on the day, with Ryan on third and thinks, _no distractions_. He clears his head, doesn't let himself think about anything except the ball, the way it leaves Francis' hand, and he knows he's got another another solid hit as soon as the bat connects. Ryan scores easily, and as he's standing on first, taking off his batting gloves and helmet, Peter realizes he's had a part in the last three Cubs runs. The inning ends with him stuck on second base, but for once he doesn't care.

Eighth inning, same as the sixth: Peter steps up to the plate with Ryan on third and one out. Peter isn't expecting anything, four hits in one game, even against the Rockies' pitching, is pushing it, and five is nearly unheard of. Except, when he stands at the plate, when he sees the ball fly out of Jorge Julio's hands, he sends it flying into left, clean over the head of the third baseman. Lee flies out to right and Ramirez grounds out to third, Peter's stuck on second base, _again_ , but he's 5-for-5. _5-for-5_. It's the closest a hitter can get to a perfect game.

Eyre and Howry tag-team to give up sixth runs in the ninth, and Peter can feel the game, _his game_ , his _perfect_ game slipping through his fingers, watching hit after hit find the gaps in the outfield. After Tulowitzki homers in the go-ahead run, Peter just watches it go, and when he turns around, there's a fan on the field screaming, "what are you doing?" and charging straight at the mound and at Howry, who doesn't notice until the last minute. Peter doesn't have time to react before the fan's clotheslined by a security guard and hauled off the field, but after he's had time to process _what the hell just happened_ , it seems fitting. The strangest game Peter's ever played in _ever_ , of _course_ some lunatic would run onto the field, gunning for the pitcher. _Of course._

Peter approaches the bottom of the ninth with a certain degree of hopelessness, but then Parkman gets a hit with a runner on, Ryan gets to first safely on a throwing error by Matsui, and the bases are loaded with one out for Soriano. Soriano, who's been waiting all season to justify his multi-million dollar contract to the city of Chicago. Soriano singles to right center, Jones and Parkman hustle across home plate, and _Cubs win! Cubs win! Cubs win!_

Peter and Howry get impromptu press conferences after the game, and Howry keeps getting hammered for giving up that homerun in the ninth, says things like, "this isn't really a win I can be proud of."

Peter, however, gets about a half a dozen people telling him over and over that he's got a place on this roster, with this team. Even Piniella seems impressed, which means he's forgiven Peter for being caught stealing in the first, and that means Peter can stop fearing for his life. The reporters keep throwing out the word "sparkplug," keep saying that it's guys like Peter who Chicago needs to get the offense going, and Peter feels stupidly giddy the whole rest of the night.

\---

By the end of June, Peter's hit safely in 22 of his 26 games and is leading the National League in batting average, hitting .367. On the first of July, when they release the results, Peter comes a close second to getting voted Rookie Of The Month for June.

Even his mother would have to admit that he's doing pretty fucking well.

\---

The roster for the All-Star Game comes down, and Claude is absolutely livid that he's not on it. Frankly, Peter's surprised by how much it affects him. Claude is pacing back and forth in the clubhouse, and at one point actually yells, "don't they know _who I am?_ " and glares down at the Chicago Tribune like it's done him wrong. Peter, who had no illusions about his own chances, and wouldn't have been eligible anyway, finds himself suppressing giggles at Claude's sporadic bursts of outrage.

Parkman says, "look, you've got your name in the running for this... Monster.com vote."

Claude looks at Parkman like something he's had to scrape off the bottom of his cleats and says, "yes, except that the part of the American population that uses the internet was still in nappies when I won the fucking Cy Young four times! I'm not young, and I'm not handsome, and I'm not Derek fucking Jeter. What I am is _talented_ , and if Tony La Russa's got his head too far up Fat Albert Pujols' arse to see that, then he's a fucking idiot."

Claude loses the special election to the rabid Padres fans, as expected, and walks around like a black cloud of anger and determination for the couple days leading up to the break. Peter thinks, _nothing like a punch-up_ , and feels sort of sorry for the next line-up Claude's going to face.

\---

Nathan's going to the All-Star Game, of course, so Peter has to call him and congratulate him. Nathan, to his credit, doesn't sound smug, and really sounds like he means it when he says he's proud of Peter. He says, "five for five, Pete, that's really something."

Peter can't always tell if Nathan's being nice or sarcastic, so he says, "shut up, how many home runs do you have now? Four hundred and what?" It's pathetic to be so complacent in Nathan's shadow for so long. Sometimes Peter finds himself desperately wishing he could exorcise the last residual traces of Nathan hero worship from his life.

Nathan chuckles and Peter can picture his huge, toothy grin as he says, "well, we can't all be as handsome and talented as I am, Pete. Some of us have just got to hit singles up the middle and get caught stealing second."

Peter hangs his head and mutters, "I do it _one time_ in the major leagues, _one time_." Nathan laughs again, that strange politician's laugh he picked up from playing too long with the Yankees.

Peter casts around inside his head for something else to talk about, fixes suddenly on something he's been thinking about recently, and asks, "did you know Claude Raines? In Montreal? When we were growing up?" Claude and Nathan had been about the same age, and just because Peter can't remember Raines coming around the house, it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Peter wouldn't have known if they'd been friends, at the time; Peter had known Nathan back then about as well as he had known his father.

Peter can practically hear Nathan's jaw lock as he says, "not really," and then, "Raines and I never got along." It doesn't surprise Peter, actually. Nathan had been so angry, all the time, when he was young, so desperate to prove himself above and beyond the legacy of their father. And lord knows that Claude's always been volatile, the man could fight with a rock. When Peter thinks about it, he realizes that the two of them must have _hated_ each other. It's funny, now, how everything's turned out.

Peter says, "he's pissed about not making the All-Star team. He should be going, Nathan. God, you should see him throw."

Nathan says, "it doesn't work like that, Peter. He can't get in now on past achievements alone. He just didn't have the numbers this year." The smugness is creeping back into Nathan's voice, the easy confidence he always has when talking about his freakishly stellar statistics. His 499 career home runs have secured him a free pass to San Francisco, even though he's on a team with a losing record, one that's trailing pathetically in their division.

Peter says, "yeah, Nathan, you're right," but the whole conversation is just reminding him that he's only ever really had two settings with Nathan: hero worship and wanting to punch him in the face.

\---

Peter never knows what to do with himself over the All-Star break. Even when he gets a day off with the team, he usually just bums around his apartment watching highlights on ESPN or watching everybody else in the league play. The days before and after the All-Star break are the only days between March and October without anybody playing baseball anywhere, and Peter absolutely doesn't want to spend the day watching NASCAR or golf.

Peter spends the morning cleaning up his hotel suite, but by noon has to admit that he doesn't actually have enough stuff to have really made a mess in the first place, and gives up.

He can't call Parkman, because he's actually in a good place with Janice, for once, and Peter doesn't want to get between them. DL's out, too, because Nikki and Micah are coming up to Chicago for the weekend and doing little-kid tourist stuff, like Navy Pier and Six Flags. Peter doesn't call Hiro because he suspects Hiro's idea of fun might involve mini-golf, and he's frankly a little too frightened to ask.

Peter is basically bored out of his mind, with only one person left to call.

He has stares at the phone for half an hour and drinks a bottle of beer very quickly before he works himself up to actually dialing the number. It's the first time Peter's sought him out deliberately, instead of relying on their schedule to throw them together, and Peter's still not completely sure it's a welcome gesture.

Claude picks up saying, "yeah?" in a sort of sharp, angry way, and Peter is just about to hang up as Claude says, "you're calling a bloody cell phone, Peter, I know it's you."

Peter says, "I, um, well," and Claude laughs a short, barking laugh, and says, "you're bored and there's no baseball on the telly. Right. Come on over." Peter doesn't know whether to be relieved or _even more nervous_. 

When he actually gets to Claude's gigantic house on the north shore, having gotten lost three times, Claude is watching something that Peter assumes is cricket on a huge television in his living room.

He hands Peter a glass of the same bitter, dark beer from the pub in New York, and half-shoves Peter down on the couch.

Peter watches the game, silently, for a few minutes, takes in the all-white uniforms, the strange underhand way the pitcher throws the ball, the oval shape of the field. But when the guy with the bat hits a ball clear over the heads of the outfielders and then just _stands there_ , that is when Peter breaks down and asks what the hell is going on.

It takes Claude what feels like hours to explain the game, which is apparently still a few _days_ shorter than it takes to actually _play_ a game of cricket. By the end of it, Peter understands that you don't actually _have_ to run when you hit the ball, but it still feels wrong.

Claude has tons of stories about being a bowler in the British equivalent of little league, almost the exact same stories Peter lived through as a kid, an ocean and a decade away. It's nice to know that some things are basically the same, no matter where you go.

After a while, Peter looks up at the screen and watches for a few minutes, really tries to pay attention and understand what's going on. He tries to fix on the things that are similar to baseball, the things that make sense, except everyone's wearing bright white and playing on what looks like somebody's front lawn and at five they _break for tea_. One of the announcers says, "oh, what a catch, what a throw, _what a man!_ " and he sounds like he could be narrating Oliver Twist.

Peter looks around Claude's giant mansion on the lakefront and says to Claude, "lucky you got out when you did."

\---

In the middle of July, DL gets sent back to Iowa to make room for Geovany Soto, a catcher who's hitting .341 in Des Moines. DL doesn't quite throw his stuff from his locker into his duffle bag when he's packing, but there are other ways to tell he's pissed off. Peter knows the feeling, but with DL there's nothing he can do, DL's more mad at himself than he is at anybody else. It's not the front office's fault that he's only batting .216.

Parkman starts to look nervous again, starts panicking every time he has to go out and bat. There isn't a team in the league that wants to carry three catchers down the stretch and Ando's the only one that's safe, because it's actually _in Hiro's contract_ that Ando catches his games.

Your name gets big enough, you get the right agent, and you can get _anything_. Hiro's contract also states that he gets a $400,000 housing allowance, a translator, and a lifetime supply of five-toed socks. Claude is making $12.4 million just to pitch one season.

Peter gets $400,000 a year if he keeps his shit together with Chicago and $20 a day for meals back in Des Moines if he doesn't.

For him, for Parkman and DL and everybody else, there's a lot on the line every day, every game.

\---

Soto gets sent down two games after he's called up, and though DL doesn't come back, Parkman stops looking so terrified, and Peter takes always takes a win where he can.

Coming back from the All-Star break, Claude is determined like Peter's never seen him. He wasn't half-assing his starts before the break or anything, but now it's like there's something inside him that's been lit on fire. Even his eyes are more defiant when they're glaring up at you over his glove.

Claude wins his first two starts after the break, becomes the first pitcher in the national league to reach 12 wins, and Peter takes him out after to celebrate. On the way there, Claude gives him the same significant look when the cabbie asks for some absurd quantity of money. Peter mutters, "twelve million dollars and you're making me pay for the taxi."

Claude swats at his shoulder as he gets out of the cab, says, "now I'm teaching you about humility."

Peter says, "yeah, well next time we're taking the fucking El."

\---

Mid-July the Cubs hammer the Giants for 12 runs and Parkman gets a career-high 5 batted in. Hitting against the Giants is actually kind of fun: all you have to do is roll the ball down the left-field line towards Barry Bonds and know he doesn't care enough about the game to actually hustle after it.

After, Parkman wants to go home, but Peter strong-arms him into going out for just one drink. All night long he looks like he's working his way up to saying something, until he finally blurts out, "Janice is pregnant," in the same voice he uses to say, "I'm out of eye-black." Peter has to take a moment to decide whether this is good news or bad news.

Parkman, though, breaks into the biggest smile Peter has ever seen and catches Peter up in a giant bear-hug that lifts him up off his feet. Peter can't breathe, but when Parkman lets him up for air, he manages to choke out a weak, "congratulations."

Parkman says, "I'm going to be a father!" and looks overjoyed, enthusiastic, like a little kid himself. Then, a few seconds later, he says, "I'm going to be someone's father," in a completely different tone and has to sit down and breathe for a minute.

Peter sits down next to him and hits him on the back in what he hopes is a soothing manner. Peter says, "I have it on good authority that raising a family is actually easier than hitting a fastball. You'll do great."

\---

On July 19th, Cesar Izturis is traded to the Pittsburg Pirates for cash and a player to be named later. Izturis is a decent guy and all, but Peter can't say he's sad to see him go. For Piniella, this means freeing up a spot on the 25-man roster, but for Peter this means that he's the official backup infielder. It means that Ryan can keep playing shortstop, they're not going to have three second basemen to squeeze into one infield position, they're not going to try to rehab Izturis into the shortstop they need, and they're not going to send Peter back to Iowa.

For the first time, Peter thinks about getting an apartment in Chicago.

Peter knows Ryan from way back, from playing second and short together with the LSU Tigers, and he forgoes going out with the guys to hang out with Ryan, toast their new-found job security. They don't have too much in common anymore, besides glory days stories from Louisiana. Ryan was always a little bit older, a little bit taller, his career moved a little bit faster. It's like having an older brother on the team, which would be great, except that Peter already has an older brother.

\---

All of a sudden it's the middle of July and the guys on ESPN are calling the Cubs the hottest team in baseball.

Peter still can't really believe it, though. Back in March, he'd started to think that he was never going to make it at all, was just gonna stick it out one more year in Des Moines until he was a free agent. Even now, it still feels like they're getting away with something, that tomorrow Piniella will wake up and realize that he's trying to make a run for it with a half a dozen rookies and bust them all back down to Des Moines.

Talking to anybody about it feels like bad luck, Peter won't even respond to his mother when she brings it up on the phone. This leaves nothing to talk about except Nathan's 499 home runs, and Peter spends half of the conversation with the phone away from his ear, yelling back "uh-huh," and, "that's great," at what he feels are appropriate intervals. When he actually starts listening again, his mother scolds him for a few seconds, for being a jerk, but afterwards she says, with absolute conviction, that she thinks he's doing well, that it's a good team.

Peter doesn't know what to do with her for a minute, but he starts her talking again about how she doesn't like the people who are putting in the new floor in the bathroom and they're back on even footing.

\---

Trading away Izturis has the downside of opening up a spot on the roster for Jake Fox from the Cubs AA affiliate, the Tennessee Smokies. Parkman gets the news, says, "not another fucking catcher," and gets even more nervous than last time. Piniella gets quoted in the paper saying that team doesn't really need three catchers down the stretch, and though Parkman may be Big Z's lucky penny, but he's still hitting well below the Mendoza line.

Parkman says, "look, they send me back down now, I get designated for assignment, I have to go through waivers. Who the hell all knows where I'll end up if that happens."

Peter knows he's living a charmed life, but it's not that charmed, it's not charmed enough to take his friends with him. Parkman looks scared and lost and Peter can't help at all, and it's tearing him up inside a little bit. He awkwardly pats Parkman on the back and understands, for the first time, that _this_ is what Claude meant about distractions.

\---

Lee starts serving his suspension for the fight with Chris Young, and Daryle Ward and Cliff Floyd both get injured in the same game, which leaves both the infield and the outfield temporarily short-handed.

Piniella shifts everybody around as best they can, but with Fox left as their only utility man, he's has to pull up a position player for a few days, and that position player ends up being Ted. It's not the greatest circumstances, filling in for a slightly injured regular doesn't mean an immediate ticket to the 40-man roster, but it's fun to pick Ted up at the bus station, show him around the locker room. It's like having a friend visit from out of town.

\---

Lee's suspension ends on the 24th of July and Ted, with two strike-outs and no hits in five at bats, gets sent back to Iowa.

There's something about the Greyhound terminal that always gets Peter on a gut level. Going through this terminal, you're either having one of the happiest moments of your life, or one of your worst. Making the trip back to Des Moines is an experience Peter doesn't want to repeat, ever.

Peter drives Ted from the hotel to the terminal and the whole way out, Ted looks grayed-out and unhappy, the skin under his eyes nearly the same color as his scraggly beard. Peter can handle Ted angry, it's one of Ted's default settings, but it's harder to see him so defeated. Baseball's been the only thing giving him hope since Karen, and even then it hasn't been that much hope.

Ted says, "well, it was nice," and Pete says, "take care of yourself," and watches helplessly as the bus rolls its way out of the station.

\---

Peter starts to worry about Ted a little less when the day after he gets back to Iowa, Ted gets angry and kicks a fire hydrant, hurting his right foot and putting himself on the disabled list in Des Moines.

Peter calls him that night, after he's gotten back from the hospital but before he's too loopy on pain meds to talk. Peter asks, "did it get in your way? Did it insult your mother? Do you object to that particular shade of red?"

Ted says, "no," and "shut the hell up, man."

Peter stops laughing long enough to say, "serves you right."

Ted says, "you know, Pete, no offense, but I really sort of hate you guys right now."

Peter muffles his laughter in his sleeve and Ted sighs really loud and exaggerated. Peter says, "hey, at least Chicago bought your contract," and at that, Ted finally cracks up, too.

\---

Another day in July, another attempt at getting the roster right. Jake Fox gets sent back to Iowa and Parkman breathes a little easier because that means, until Blanco's shoulder is feeling healthy again, they've basically exhausted all the other third-catcher possibilities.

Matt Murton gets called up to play right field, and everybody's a little confused that it isn't DL, who's hitting great again in the minors. Peter calls him that night, says, "tough break."

DL doesn't sound like Peter expects him to, instead he says, "nah, man, it's ok."

Peter had called with every intention of talking shit about Murton, for DL's sake, even though he actually liked the guy pretty well. Instead, DL's saying, "look, I play there, I'm part-timing with Floyd, I'm not gonna be happy with that."

All Peter can think to say is, "whoa. You sound oddly mature all of a sudden." If DL was actually in the room, Peter's pretty sure he'd get punched in the arm for saying it.

DL laughs and says, "this way, I play every day and work on my swing, and in September I can come back and help you guys kick some post-season ass, alright?"

Peter says, "yeah," but he's still a little confused about DL's attitude. And then something else occurs to him, and he says, "Nikki's still in Iowa, right, 'cause she didn't want to take Micah out of school?"

DL sounds nothing but smug when he says, "I'm not saying anything you don't already know here, but my wife is a very attractive woman."

Peter says, "she is at that," and then, because they're old friends and he can say it and it's _still funny_ , he says, "I still can't believe you married a stripper."

DL says, "fuck you, man, I'm hanging up," but Peter can hear him laughing as he does.

\---

End of July, the Cubs get a day off, and Milwaukee gets swept by the Cardinals in a day-night double-header. The Cubs pick up a game and a half in the division without ever lifting a bat, closer on Milwaukee's heels than they've been all year.

Peter and Parkman watch the whole thing in Claude's living room because Claude still has the biggest TV Peter's _ever seen_ , and Parkman's just happy to get away from a cranky and pregnant Janice for a little while.

At the end of the first game, after the Cards score three runs in the ninth to walk off with the win, Parkman says, "you know what, it's crazy, but we're this close to leading the division, we've got Milwaukee on the ropes, and now I'm starting to worry about St. Louis."

Peter knows the feeling. The Cards had a rocky start this year, but you can't ever count out the reigning World Series winner, even if they only won 83 games in the regular season last year. The Cubs know, more than anybody, that you can't judge a team in August based on what they did in April.

Claude says, "take it one game at a time, friend. That's just about all you can do."

\---

Claude wins five starts in July, one right after the other. He's the first pitcher in the National League to 12 wins, to 13, to 14. On the 29th of July he throws a two-hit shut-out against Cincinnati, the Cubs rolling to an easy 6-0 win. He's leading the league in earned run average and he's on pace to be the Cubs' first 20 game winner since 2001.

The club pulls within half a game of the Brewers and everywhere Peter looks, in the clubhouse, on the streets of the north side, the whole city's holding their breath. Chicago isn't a town that's used to winning. Before the White Sox championship in 2005, the south side hadn't seen a World Series win since 1917, and the north side still hasn't brought home a trophy since 1908. The Cubs have had 99 seasons of heartbreak, everybody just sets themselves up for annual disappointment. It's gotten too hard for most fans to hold on to hope, to set yourself up every season just to get your hopes crushed again this year.

But still, Peter can feel it on the streets, in the clubhouse: a quiet hope, nothing anybody wants to talk about too loud. The feeling that finally, finally, _this could be the year._

\---

Peter's still covered in infield dirt, his left knee twinging a little from the ground ball he ran down in the ninth, when Paul Sullivan from the Tribune catches him in the tunnel. He went 0-for-5 with two strikeouts, but still can't help feeling stupidly giddy about the win, the weekend, the whole month of July, so when Sullivan asks him what he thinks about the team, the young bench, the pennant race, he just goes with what he's thinking.

"It's like the Braves, right? They keep bringing guys up and they keep winning. It was guys that had played together, and they kept them together throughout the whole journey and ended up winning division after division," Peter says into Sullivan's tape recorder. "I think a lot of that has to do with the comfort level with the guys next to you." Parkman walks by, swearing and rubbing at his knees every few steps. "Realistically, you're going to have to be here 162 games. You're going to have to like the people you're with, and get to know them and trust them." Claude walks by, catches Peter's eye, and Peter can feel his face heat, but hopes it just looks like he's hot and tired and worn-out.

Sullivan gives him a pointed look and he realizes he's trailed off in thought, comes back with, "yeah. And, you know, that stuff doesn't happen overnight. As you saw that with this team, it took us a little while to get to that comfort level, but once we got our mix together... You know, it's kind of a young core, minus DL, that have all been together for four, five years." He thinks of Claude sneering and saying _your little gang_ , again, and smiles. "It makes it very rewarding."

\---

Peter talks Claude into going out that night, and he says yes in that somewhat begrudging, but mostly fond way that Peter's come to know and love. The three of them go to a stupidly trendy bar in downtown Cincinnati with ridiculously expensive décor and overpriced watered-down drinks.

Everywhere Peter looks there are gorgeous, skinny women in short skirts, acres of skin on display, but all Peter can think is that Claude looks fantastic in the low light. Peter tries to pull up the usual things to remind himself it's a terrible idea: that Claude is too old for him, that Claude is friends with his mother, that Claude is better and cranky and mean. These things have held him back in the past, but they just don't hold up under the tide of emotion Peter feels when Claude deigns to smile, when he actually tips his head back and laughs at some stupid joke that Parkman's making.

Peter pours Parkman into a cab around two, decides to call Janice and apologize in the morning. He sincerely hopes that there weren't any Cubs fans with camera-phones in the bar; the Parkman marriage has enough problems on its own.

Peter talks Claude into coming back to Peter's room with him, though later he doesn't remember how, and doesn't know why Claude agrees, not really. He unlocks the door, thankful he's got a single, thankful that the key works on the first try, thankful for that girl in Arizona's advice about magnets.

Peter doesn't really understand why Claude lingers with him in the doorway, why Claude doesn't just walk back to his own suite. Peter knows what he wants, even if he hasn't let himself think about it more than in a surface way, but he's never understood why Claude does anything, anything at all. He knows, though, that sometimes Claude has this way of looking at Peter, and Claude looks oddly soft in those moments, edges smoothed out. Peter knows that he's the only one that gets to see those moments and he thinks that that those moments have to mean something.

Before he lets himself get swallowed up into the welcoming dark of his hotel room, alone, he lets himself lean in towards Claude, lets himself breathe, "come inside."

Claude asks, "what are you doing?" his voice unexpectedly soft. At the sound of Claude's voice, the look on his face, something breaks wide open inside of Peter and everything he's been pushing down rushes up the surface in a sudden wave.

Peter sways a little, light-headed and unsteady on his feet. He says, "something unexpected," pushes himself up on the balls of his feet, and kisses Claude in the shadow of the open doorway.

Claude kisses him back, hands coming up to frame Peter's face, and pushes him back into the dark room, the door falling closed behind them. The light coming in through the one window isn't enough to see by and they trip over the coffee table and bruise their shins on the couch, trying to get to the bed.

It's awkward, they're both a little drunk, but Peter just pushes on, steamrolls over Claude when he hesitates. As prickly and imposing as Claude is in everything else, with Peter, like this, he's oddly gentle, careful.

\---

Peter wakes up the next morning and thinks, in quick succession: Oh my god, I slept with Claude Raines. Oh my god, I _slept with Claude Raines._ _Oh my god_ , I sleptwith _Claude Raines_.

Thankfully, Claude sleeps through each one of Peter's freak-out permutations and barely changes position when Peter slinks out of the bed to go panic in the bathroom. Last night, in the dark, everything had felt simple and easy and obvious, the path clearly marked. Now, with everything lit up bright in the early morning sunlight, Peter isn't exactly sure what the hell he's doing.

He's slept with men before, in college and afterwards, but never another ballplayer and absolutely _never_ a teammate. He doesn't even begin to know how to handle this kind of thing.

It's difficult enough trying to deal with the fact that he's _slept_ with Claude, but more than that, everything's out in the open now. It's not just Claude he's worried about, he can't hide from _himself_ any more. All season long. he's been keeping everything just off to the side, just out of sight, where he didn't have to think about it, or own up to anything. Now, though, that precious control that he was holding on to for dear life is just _shot_ , just _wrecked_.

In the cold light of day, Peter's real problem is that he's probably in love with Claude. Claude, who's emotionally impassive, who's completely wrapped up in trust issues, who only trusted at all to start with was Peter because Peter didn't pry and didn't push. Well, Peter can pretty much count what he did last night as pushing. He just doesn't know how much Claude is going to push back.

When Peter finally talks himself out of the bathroom, Claude is up, sitting on the couch in his boxers, watching an early repeat of last night's SportsCenter. He says, cheerily, "good morning," and Peter has a moment of panic that he's actually woken up in _someone else's life_.

Claude, who is obviously taking this much better than Peter is, says, "I can hear the gears turning in your head, Peter, it's bloody exhausting." He tilts his head like he's daring Peter to do something about it and Peter fumbles around for something to say, off-balanced.

He ends up blurting out, "I've had a picture of you up in my room _since I was 13_." Claude just raises and eyebrow at him and goes back to watching TV.

Peter sits down, confused, and watches the highlights from the American League, notes absently that Nathan still hasn't hit number 500.

Claude says, "the show's gone down-hill since they really started counting NASCAR as a sport." Peter nods, tries to remember how to breathe normally, concentrates on getting his heart-rate back to steady.

Eventually, Peter pries himself off the couch and pokes his head out the door of the suite long enough to grab the Tribune he'd requested off of the fake welcome mat. Peter flips through the sports section, where there's a picture of him on page four that he has to remember to send to his mother, and he notices that Sullivan's printed his whole interview in the wrap-up.

He hands off the paper to Claude when he's done with it, hears Claude's snort of derision at his ridiculous optimism. Claude looks up at him and says, sarcastically, " _very rewarding?_ "

This time, though, Peter knows he's right, and they've got the record to prove it.

\---

Peter shows up at the clubhouse before the next game not exactly sure how he's supposed to act. Claude had gone back to his room early to get his stuff before the buses left, and in the moment before Claude had opened the door, Peter had leaned in on instinct, kissed him goodbye. Claude had said, "keep this up and I'll start thinking you've just got a thing for doorways," and left. It's only now, hours and hours later, that Peter realizes that they hadn't actually settled anything, anything at all.

Peter changes into his uniform, gets an exuberant armful of Hiro, who always hugs him for good luck before a start, and watches Parkman slink in, wearing a pair of sunglasses and looking terribly hung over. Peter remembers that he was going apologize to Janice, and he's putting together what he could possibly say that wouldn't lead to her ripping his face off, when he realizes that, basically, this day is exactly the same as any other. Peter is still fundamentally the same, and nobody else has really changed. They still have a game to play, just like any other day.

During the game, as always, Claude ignores him for the first five innings, reading _Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance_ and pretending he's somewhere other than Wrigley Field. Half-way through the top of the fifth, after Iguchi hits a home run off of Hiro, Claude looks up from his book and says, "you know, your friend Parkman has a gift."

Peter looks where Claude's looking, and sees Parkman, sitting in the corner of the dugout, talking on his cell phone with his head in his hands and a sort of pinched expression on his face. Peter looks back at Claude, confused, and has no idea what he's talking about.

Claude says, "he gets in the batter's heads," and that, Peter gets. Parkman's the reason they stopped having Friday night poker games in Des Moines. Sometimes, though, Peter suspects that some of the other in guys in triple-A have kept it going and just stopped inviting them.

Peter's never really thought much about Parkman as a catcher, what it's like for him behind the plate. Parkman knows Peter well enough to know it's a bit over his head, and Peter doesn't try to fool himself that he understands the strange alchemy between battery-mates. Parkman doesn't really talk about how he calls a game, about why he chooses the pitches he does. Something he does has obviously impressed Claude, though; Ando used to catch all his games, but he's had better luck with Parkman since he came up. With Parkman behind the plate Claude has a 1.46 earned run average, and has only given up 26 hits in 55 innings of work.

Even Big Z, who keeps claiming to the press that he doesn't care who catches him, has been treating Parkman like his personal good luck charm ever since the All-Star break.

Peter still doesn't know what exactly happened in the dugout before Big Z tried to claw Barrett's eyes out. The people's he's asked have all said they couldn't make out what Big Z was saying, anyway, but everybody knows that Big Z was never happy with the way Barrett called pitches during a game. As much trouble as Parkman's been having _at_ the plate with his hitting, he's had none of the problems Barrett had _behind_ the plate.

Claude says, "shame he can't hit." Peter chokes on a swallow Gatorade, and tries to glare at Claude, but by the time Peter can breathe again, Claude's focus is back in his book.

Peter goes back to watching the game.

Hiro has been having a fantastic month, but he gets pounded by Philadelphia. He never seems to let losses get to him, though, he's always got the same sort of happy, excited outlook, no matter how the game is actually going.

After the game, as Peter's walking towards his car, he's mildly surprised to find Claude follows him. Claude says, "Give me a ride home, yeah? I never got a proper license." Which means that all this time, Claude's been taking a taxi from Wrigley _to the north shore_ after every home game. It makes Peter's head hurt to think about how much that must cost, before he remembers that Claude is making _twelve million dollars_ and can probably afford it.

Peter just shakes his head and says, "get in."

\---

What surprises Peter the most about their change in relationship is how little actually changes. They don't talk to each other in the dugout or the clubhouse any more than they did before. Claude still ignores him during games, works his way through pretentious novels, Peter still dicks around with his friends. Outwardly, almost nothing is different, except that Peter goes home with Claude some nights, Claude comes back to Peter's hotel room some nights.

Peter still feels on-edge, like's he's getting away with something, like he's going to get caught-out at any moment. He doesn't know why he expected Claude to be more freaked out about the whole thing, the way Claude lets everything else roll of his back.

\---

Peter always finds the week around the trade deadline disorienting. It's a bit like nobody is who they said they were anymore. Peter keeps seeing familiar faces in unfamiliar uniforms. It's pretty damn disorienting to watch the Cubs' pitching staff get lit up by Aaron Rowand and Tadahito Iguchi, former White Sox from the championship team. Peter keeps looking at the scoreboard and forgetting where the hell he is.

A couple of days before the deadline, DL's name starts showing up in the trade rumors. It doesn't mean a lot, not really. When Peter got traded out of Baltimore, it'd been without warning. He'd been one of the "at least two minor-leaguers" tacked onto a the Sammy Sosa deal, his name wasn't even in the leading paragraph in the local paper.

Nikki calls after the rumors show up on the internet, sounds genuinely nervous when she asks him if there's any truth to anything, if he knows anything more than they do back in Des Moines. She says, "DL won't admit to anything, you know how he is, but I know he doesn't want to go anywhere. None of us do."

Peter doesn't pretend he understands what's going on in the general manager's office, but he reassures Nikki as best he can. At least 90% of all trade rumors are absolutely untrue: Manny Ramirez is still playing for Boston, Jermaine Dye isn't going anywhere except the south side, and Peter's still waiting for that Barry Bonds deal to go through. It's is just bored sports writers stirring stuff up because they can.

The next day, Bennet is quoted in the Trib saying, basically, _no way in hell._ No fewer than four articles have the same basic quotes: "DL Hawkins has never been talked about," and, "he's not going anywhere in any deal," and, "there will be no trade of DL Hawkins to anyone."

Peter calls Nikki back, and all she says is, "never mind." He can hear DL asking something in the distance, right before he hears Nikki say, "wrong number," and hang up. Sometimes Peter wonders about their trust issues.

\---

Everybody's nervous on trade day anyway. Parkman spends the morning at the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church down Addison, and Peter only ever sees Parkman near religion when he's worried about baseball. Peter tries to take the Tribune to heart, tries to believe all the articles about how Piniella's not worried, Bennet's not worried, how they want to keep a winning team like this together. That doesn't mean he doesn't find himself on July 31st chewing on his thumbnail, pushing his hair out of his eyes, and hoping the phone doesn't ring before three.

All morning, Bennet's office remains blissfully silent.

Peter finds out later from the Tribune, source of all important and interesting information, that during the hour leading up to the deadline, Piniella was getting a massage in his office.

\---

The game after nobody gets traded anywhere, the Cubs beat the Phillies 7-3 and Peter punches in a pinch-hit RBI. After the game, some reporter says the Milwaukee game is still going on into extra innings, and by some unspoken agreement, everybody meets up in a local bar to watch the rest of it.

If Milwaukee loses, that puts the Cubs up into a first place tie, into contention for the first time in a long, long time. The Mets have already blown Tom Glavine's chance at getting 300 wins, and they blow perfectly good opportunities to score any time they get a man on base. The whole bar shouts themselves horse yelling at the TV when the Mets fail _again!_ to get a man across home plate. Even Claude, calmed by his World Series rings and years and years of experience, gets into the spirit of the thing, muttering under his breath, "don't you people learn how to bunt anymore?"

The fight goes out of the whole bar when the Mets give up a 2-run homer in the bottom of the thirteenth, and the bartender wisely turns the TV back to SportsNite before they show too much of the Brewers post-game celebration.

Claude shakes his head at the whole thing and Parkman curses a blue streak between swigs of Miller Lite.

Peter is undaunted, though. He says, "we'll get 'em tomorrow, or we'll get 'em next week, but good fucking god, we're gonna get them soon."

\---

The Cubs catch the Brewers the next day.

It's a 4-4 tie going into the bottom of the ninth and everyone is more or less resigned to extra innings until Murton hits a double into center. Meyers, the Phillies reliever, heaves a wild pitch past the catcher that takes an ugly bounce off the brick backstop, and Murton runs to third. Meyers walks Cedeno accidentally and Jones on purpose, strikes out the next batter, and on his third pitch to Daryl Ward, manages to throw the exact same wild pitch that takes off the brick at the exact right angle, and Murton scrambles past home before the catcher can get back to the plate.

Peter's up out of the dugout before he realizes he's moving, grabbing Murton by the back of his jersey and jumping up and down in front of the dugout like an idiot, every muscle in his body alive. He knows it's just a tie for first, that it's August and teams are made in September, but still, all he can think is: _first place! first place! first place!_

For once, when they go out afterwards, Claude pays for the cab.

\---

The thing with Claude, it only really feels dangerous during a game, when the team's up by a few runs or down by so many that it's pretty much hopeless. It's easy to go into your head, then, lose sight of the real world.

Once, while Claude's on the mound and Peter's playing second, they're playing with the infield in so close that he can almost smell Claude's sweat, and it's distracting. He starts thinking about the way Claude smells, the way he sounds, what they did the night before. It takes him a moment after Claude releases the pitch, every time, to get his head back into the game, back on what's happening.

With baseball, though, a moment is everything, anyone who says differently should talk to Bill Buckner. It only took a moment, almost a split-second to commit an error, to let a simple ground ball get between his legs, but it turned that game around, and the whole fucking city of Boston still hasn't forgiven him for it.

Peter doesn't want to get so distracted during a game that he commits that kind of error. He doesn't want to explain to Piniella that he was too busy thinking about having sex with the starting pitcher to pay attention to the game and _that's_ how the go-ahead run ended up on base. Sweet Lou hasn't been showing his sweet side around the north side too often recently, his legendary temper hasn't exploded at full strength in months, but Peter doesn't really want to _tempt_ that. 

Peter's always a little relieved when Claude comes out in the late innings and Piniella calls in the relievers. Having Wuertz or Eyre or Howry on the mound puts a damper on those kinds of thoughts pretty fucking quickly.

\---

Early August, they're playing the Sunday Night Game on ESPN against the Mets, Tom Glavine trying for the seventh time to get his 300th win as a starting pitcher.

Claude, who Peter typically considers a loyal and sane man, tries to convince Peter that everybody should just throw the game. Peter knows that Claude and Glavine played together with the Braves in the mid-90s, but when Claude goes so far as to call Glavine a _mate_ and go on about how he's _such a good guy_ , Peter just gets more and more confused.

Eventually he cuts Claude off and asks, "wait, wait, the only time you have nice things to say about people is when they're pitching against us?" Claude half-shrugs and Peter just gives up on making any sense out of the guy, basically ever.

In the end, it doesn't matter whether or not Peter wants to throw it, the Mets win 8-3, Glavine finally gets his win, and Alfonso Soriano, the Cubs' 136 Million Dollar Man, pulls a quad running from second to third. Piniella puts Soriano on the 15-day disabled list, but the odds aren't great on him coming back to the lineup before September.

As much as Peter wants the world to be fair, for baseball to be an absolute team effort, for one star not to make or break the whole team, having Soriano out for a month, that pretty much means they're all screwed.

\---

Parkman and DL keep giving him shit about not having a girlfriend, and he's wearing out the inside of his bottom lip from biting it, keeping himself from saying anything. Every once in a while, he thinks about saying something, coming out, coming clean, whatever. Thinks about the way they'd all react. They're good guys, they wouldn't _hit_ him or anything, but he knows they'd get uncomfortable, things would get awkward. The whole thing makes him feel like he's leading a secret double life, which is not nearly as glamorous as movies make it seem.

Peter says something about it to Claude one night, and Claude says something back that sounds suspiciously like, "that's what they all say."

It throws Peter off, the casual reference to a previous relationship. He had assumed, foolishly, that this kind of thing, being teammates and sneaking around and everything, that Claude was new to it, as well. Except, of course, Claude had taken everything in stride easily, too easily, and Peter had been thanking his luck too much to question it. Peter had been half asleep before, but he's wide awake now, asking, "how many, before me?"

Claude looks exasperated at him and says, "not your bloody father, if that's what's got you looking all bent out of shape." Peter shakes his head to clear it, but everything is still pretty muddled. Claude says, "you're what, twenty-seven? Don't tell me you've _never?_ "

Peter says, "not with a teammate, not like this." Inside, the part of him that that acts like a 14-year-old girl is yelling, _I thought this was different_. Inside, the part of him that's a 26-year-old baseball player is asking, _is this why he left San Francisco?_ Outside, Peter pretends to be falling asleep, but he's pretty sure Claude isn't buying it.

Claude props himself up on one arm, leans over Peter, and when Peter gives up on faking sleep, he opens his eyes and finds Claude just looking at him. He doesn't say anything, but his face looks unguarded in a way Peter's never seen it before. Peter recognizes the expression in his eyes, though, it's the one from the picture on his bedroom door, the expression that Claude is hiding from the rest of the world.

What Peter realizes now, that he didn't then, is that the Claude in that picture wasn't angry, or glaring, or triumphant, he was just _focused_. He was looking at something that, at the time, was the most important thing in the world. Except now, instead of looking at a World Series win, now, he's looking at _Peter_.

Peter gets it, why Claude hides his face the way he does after an inning, understands that some things are important enough that you have to hide them from everyone else. Almost everyone.

\---

The first two and a half weeks in August, the Cubs drop 10 out of 14 games. It's like April and May all over again, everything that _had_ been working just falls apart, one thing after another. When they can hit, they can't pitch, and they lose games 10-6 and 11-9. When they can pitch, they can't hit and they lose 2-1. Most of all, though, there are just games where nothing goes right, one after another, 8-3, 5-2, 8-2, _15-2_. Hiro and Claude, who carried them through June and July, who were the most winning combination after the All-Star break, suddenly can't find the strike-zone with two hands and a map.

Peter's average slumps from above .300 to around .280, and nothing feels like it's going right. Every once in a while, when he's feeling most desperate, Peter thinks about punching someone, getting in a fight with Parkman, seeing if he can get something started again. _Nothing like a punch-up_.

DL gets called up again, in the middle of it, and Peter would be happier to have back if he wasn't so damn miserable about the whole slump. At least, though, with DL and Parkman and Claude and everyone, Peter's not drinking alone.

There's one bright spot, at least, in that as far as Chicago is skidding, Milwaukee is skidding right along with them. The Cubs hardly fall behind in the divisional race, though now the Cardinals are creeping back into it like scavengers, picking up the scent of blood.

The thing about it is, it's just horribly frustrating. Peter keeps thinking, every game, that they could have _had_ that game, he knows they could have. Every game, if it'd been played two weeks ago, would have been an easy win, there was no real reason why they should have lost like that. He can't help but feel like they should be ten games up on Milwaukee by now, not a game and a half back.

\---

Claude loses a start 6-5 against the reds, gets a no-decision or a loss for his third start in a row. All anybody from the press asks about is how Claude feels about throwing a game without striking anybody out, how he feels about giving up 13 hits in seven innings of work. Claude's been in the game too long to let the press in on what's going on in his head, mutters something about being a ground-ball pitcher, not putting too much faith in strike-outs. Peter can tell, though, that he's angry, that this loss is bothering him more than any other.

Peter isn't blameless in it, either. He made the last out of the game, hit a ball that went very nearly out of the park, but the wind wasn't with it, the legendary Wrigley wind was blowing in the wrong direction. The ball drifted down to an outfielder to end the game instead of giving the team the game-tying shot the they needed.

Peter gives Claude a ride back to his house after the game, and the ride passes in defeated silence, the lights of Chicago streaking by the window. They don't usually bring their work home with them, and in baseball, how could you, but tonight, when Claude gets out of the car and storms his way into the entry hall of the house, he's visibly agitated.

Claude says, like he's finishing an argument Peter started in the car, "I was fine on my own. My life wasn't pretty or glamorous, but I made my own rules. I was living how I wanted, before your Bennet came to find me, before the whole bloody city of Chicago brought its baggage to my door."

Claude is pacing back and forth like a caged animal, and Peter hasn't seen him this agitated since the All-Star break. It's driving Peter crazy, but he knows better than to try and get him to stop, knows it's a better idea to just let him go and he'll wear himself down, eventually. Except, Claude stops pacing for a moment and just _looks_ at Peter, glares, and Peter realizes that Claude means _him_. That Claude thinks it's Peter's fault that he's losing the way he is, that it's Peter's fault he's lost velocity off his fastball or precision of his curve.

Claude says, "it's always the same old story. First sign of weakness and they jump all over you and tear you to shreds." 

It's that one word, _weakness_ , that finally gets through to Peter, gets his head sorted out well enough to respond. He says, "you don't make me weak."

Claude finally looks up at Peter without glaring, without accusations, and Peter knows what he sees. Peter knows, absolutely, that he's stronger and faster and smarter since March, since meeting Claude and starting this, whatever the hell it is. Claude slows down his pacing, just a fraction, and Peter presses his advantage, says, "I don't think I'm making you weak, I don't think that what we have here is a weakness."

Peter says, "I don't think it's a sign of weakness to trust somebody else." If Peter knows nothing else anymore, he knows that Claude trusts him. He knows because he's had to work for it, taking every inch, ever millimeter that Claude was willing to give him. He's not going to lose it, not yet, not now, when he's come so far.

Peter says, "I don't know what happened to you to make you run away like you did, before, and I know that you're not going to believe me, whatever I say here, but I want you to know that I'm stronger for having met you. For having been with you." It's out there, the only declaration of love that Peter thinks Claude is willing to accept: _I don't regret you_.

Peter says, "whatever happened to you then, it's not going to happen now. Whatever you think is happening with your pitching right, it's not going to last. You're gonna wake up one day and win three in a row. That's just baseball, that's just the game. This slump isn't going to last forever."

Peter says, "and you know what I think? I think we're gonna win the division. You and me and Parkman and probably DL and maybe even Ted. We're going to _win this division_ and then we're going to win the World Series. And I know that's old hat for you, but it's not for me, and it's not routine for the city of Chicago. The Cubs have gone 99 years without winning it all, and we're going to change that. And if it's not this season, then it's going to be next year. But we're going to do it. Not because we're machines and we're perfect ball players, but because we're people and we're complicated and stupid and messy and we need each other. I need you."

He says, "Piniella and Bennet, they're giving me a chance, they're giving us all a chance. They brought you back to life. And yeah, we're a stupidly young team right now, but we've come farther than anyone could have imagined. Because they gave us a chance. That's all. Jesus, Claude, you've just got to give it a chance."

And he does.

**Author's Note:**

> My father taught me everything I know about baseball, and [ESPN.com](http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/index), [Spring Training Online](http://www.springtrainingmagazine.com/), and [IowaCubs.com](http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/index.jsp?sid=t451) filled in the salient details.


End file.
